which surrounded the throne of Augustus, and he and all his kinsmen are asleep in dust. We perceive the busy and thronging multitudes again alive with action in the streets of Rome; and lo! the gates of the Temple of Janus, so long closed in peace, now stand open wide. The legions are in full advance towards the land of Palestine, fraught with the mission of the whirlwind. The self-willed and blinded Jews have, by repeated acts of rebellious violence, aroused the fury of the Roman power, and there it advances, with slow and measured tread, to burst upon their land. Fortress after fortress has fallen before the invader; and the cool and determined Titus has now sat down before the walls of Jerusalem. With settled purpose he has cast a bank around the devoted city, and hemmed in the wretched inhabitants on every side. But amid all their wretchedness there is among them no faltering resolution; and he who would dare propose submission to the Roman, must suffer instant death. Blinded and infatuated, they seem devoted to destruction; they see death without and around, and yet their furious passions are not checked; for, amid the cries of the famished, may be heard the clash of arms, and the groans of brethren slain by a brother's hand. Enormities the most horrid and revolting are perpetrated within the walls, so horrid as to excite the hatred and indignation of the sanguinary Roman soldiery. They break down the walls, burst into the city, and, in defiance of the benevolent and urgent commands of their well-beloved General, they burn down the magnificent temple and lay it in ruins, literally leaving not one stone upon another. The city is demolished; its very foundations are ploughed up, and as though to devote it to utter desolation, the earth which supported the walls is sowed with salt. Thousands of the miserable people are nailed to crosses, and the millions that remain are led away captive and scattered among the nations of the earth. From that hour the Jewish nation has ceased to have a country or a home. Near two thousand years have since rolled on, and they still present the unparalleled phenomenon of a nation, with all the elements of unity, yet without power to unite; scattered throughout the world and exposed to every circumstance of trial, yet preserving their identity as a people where every other people have been destroyed, or have been melted into the mass around them.

Even the reckless Pagan soldiers, who looked upon the ruin of this people when Jerusalem fell, attributed the events which they witnessed to the direct interposition of the gods. But we, who stand two thousand years behind them, and see the still more wonderful history that succeeded; we, who behold the present state of their nation, and the remarkable events which are now discovering their lost ten tribes, and which are combining to restore them all to their former country; we, with the Bible in our hand, can read at once the design and the solution of the mystery. In this wonderful book their fate is declared by God, fifteen centuries before the destruction of Jerusalem.

"If it shall come to pass," says he, "that thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God to observe to do all his commandments and his statutes which I command thee this day, then all these curses shall come upon thee, and overtake thee. The Lord shall bring a nation against thee from afar, from the end of the earth, as swift as the eagle flieth-a nation whose tongue thou shalt not understand-a nation of fierce countenance, who shall not regard the person of the old, nor show favor to the young. And he shall besiege thee in all thy gates, until thy high and fenced walls wherein thou trustest, come down throughout thy land. And thou shalt eat the fruit of thine own body, the flesh of thy sons and of thy daughters, in the siege and in the straitness wherewith thy enemies shall distress thee. And ye shall be plucked from off the land. And the Lord shall scatter thee among all people from the one end of the earth even unto the other. And among these nations shalt thou find no ease, neither shall the sole of thy foot have rest; but the Lord shall give thee there a trembling of heart, and failing of eyes; and sorrow of mind. Even all nations shall say, Wherefore hath the Lord done thus unto this land? Then men shall say, Because they have forsaken the covenant of the Lord God of their fathers; for they went and served other gods, and the anger of the Lord was kindled against this land, and the Lord rooted them out of their land in anger, and in wrath, and in great indignation, and cast them into another land, as it is this day."-28 and 29 Deut.

Awful denunciation! and yet those to whom it was uttered dared to encounter it. They ventured to rebel against the Great Being, of whose truth and power they had seen so many manifestations; rejected his every message of reconciliation; and finally, when, as a consummation of Almighty goodness, the Lord of the vineyard sent to them his own Son, they cried, "Crucify him! crucify him! his blood be upon us and upon our children." Blind and infatuated men! Eighteen centuries of humiliation and of woe, have been the burthen of this dreadful imprecation. The sole of your foot has yet found no resting place on the earth. The fair daughter of Zion still mourns her desolation; and Jerusalem is yet trodden down of the Gentiles, and so must continue, until the times of the Gentiles shall be accomplished.

Could some gifted hand be permitted to draw aside the veil, and exhibit to us the period when these times shall have been accomplished, we should then see how the plan of Omnipotence had combined into a whole the stirring events which our own times have witnessed. Even with our limited vision, we can perceive how the wild incursion of Napoleon, with his legions upon the plains of Egypt and Syria, has paved the way for that most extraordinary change, by which the nations of the east have, as it were, been brought westward, and made to become an integral part of the political system of Europe. Our own eyes are beholding the Ottoman power actually crumbling in pieces, without external pressure or

design; or, as the Bible expresses it, "breaking without hands." Behold, on the one side, the blind fury of the Sultan, lopping off at Constantinople the right arm of his own power by butchering the Janizaries and destroying the national pride of his people. See, on the other, the fleets of England, his professed friends and allies, sinking at Navarino the entire navy of Turkey, in a battle so repugnant to the wishes and policy of the British Government, as to compel them to lament and disavow their own victory, and brand it as an undesigned and "untoward blunder." Behold that same England, when the armies of Mehemet Ali are in full advance upon Constantinople, and are about to plant a new dynasty and infuse new life and vigor into the Turkish monarchy; behold her arresting their advance, and again inflicting upon Turkey the very wound which it was their design to avert, leaving her powerless and broken, by the very act which they intended should secure her strength. Could we but raise the curtain one moment longer, with what deepening interest would we consider the novel incident of yesterday, when after so many centuries of persecution and hate, the Christian world united to rescue the Jews within the walls of Damascus; and the mere voice of Christendom shook loose the grasp of the Turk, and gave new courage to the dispirited and forsaken Jew! And deeper still would be the interest with which we should view the struggle now going on for the independence of Syria and Palestine-and the discovery which is even now being developed of the remnant of the long lost Ten Tribes of Israel, found at last, fenced in among inaccessible mountains, upon the very spot whither the Bible tells us they were led captive twenty-five centuries ago-pressed upon and hemmed in by hostile and superior strength, yet safe under the protection of Almighty promise.

Then, indeed, would every heart be opened, and every tongue confess, as in the days of Elijah, the Lord, He is God. His providence is over all His works Not even a sparrow falleth to the ground without His hand, and His truth endureth from generation to generation. The great, the mighty truth, would be fastened upon every mind, "that the Lord is King; the earth may be glad thereof." "Tell it out among the heathen that the Lord is King, and that it is He who hath made the round world so fast that it cannot be moved, and how that He shall judge the people righteously."

"In His hand are all the corners of the earth," and the whole system of the universe is, through Him, combined into

"One stupendous whole,

Whose body nature is, and God the soul.

Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze,

Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees;

Lives through all life, extends through all extent,

Spreads undivided, operates unspent.

To Him no high, no low, no great no small,

He fills, he bounds, connects and equals all."

Gentlemen of the Euphradian and Clariosophic Societies:

The time will soon arrive when you will leave the care of this our Alma-Mater, to take your places upon the stage of human action. Many of you will be called upon to yield your talents to the service and councils of our country. It is when the active duties of life shall make their demands upon you that you will perceive and exhibit the value of the principles with which your minds are imbued. Their truth or error will produce results fraught with blessing or with evil, to yourselves and to others, within your sphere of influence. It is of the last importance, then, that you should search well your foundation, and plant yourselves upon those great principles of Religious truth, which, like the neverfailing laws of nature, ever point to the same great centre from which they all do emanate.

In Physical Science, as well as in mere Mental Philosophy, it has pleased the great Creator to place us in the midst of facts, and leave us to build up systems from these facts by the operations of inductive reasoning. As the truth or error of these systems involve no moral agency, we are not held accountable for them, but are left free to admit or deny their reasonableness, accordingly as they impress our minds. But when we step further, and reach the point of action, philosophy has become changed to duty, and the wisdom and benevolence of God now intervene to guide us. Revelation now presents us with positive commands, and the facts of the moral world are no longer kept at large to be arranged into system by our finite intelligence, but are adjusted by infinite wisdom into so simple and well-contrived a scheme that he who runs may read it. Thus, in the events of history, to which I have been directing your attention, God does not permit us to look upon the prosperity and upon the ruin of nations as a mere spectacle to be gazed at; but He tells us distinctly of the object and causes of that prosperity and of that destruction. Behold this nation, says He; it shall flourish because it obeys my laws. Look at this other; it hath filled up the measure of its iniquities, and I will sweep it with the besom of destruction. The great principle is announced, "The righteous shall flourish like a palm tree, and shall spread abroad like a cedar in Lebanon; while the wicked shall be cut down like the grass, and be withered even as the green herb." And as we follow down the course of events we behold nation after nation subjected to this rule, and suffering its consequences with that undeviating certainty which is the element of every law of God.

Thus are we taught that we, too, must be subjected to this same unvarying law. Our people and our nation must, like those whose fate has been exhibited to us, be weighed in the everlasting balance. See, then, to what point you are brought! Behold how important it is that you, who must soon take our places in directing the destinies of South Carolina, should feel your dependence upon the Almighty Governor of the universe, and should strive to secure this favor and obey His laws.

Behold His blessing or His curse awaiting the course which you may pursue. See what may be done by the efforts of even a few, when, for ten righteous men, even Sodom would have been spared. But not only will the land be spared, but it will be refreshed by the favor of the King of kings if you will but keep in that land a remembrance of His statutes, and an earnest desire to walk in the same.

There is also another great practical principle announced in the events which we have been considering, to which I desire to invite your attention. It is, that man is not held accountable for ultimate consequences. The immediate act before him is that which he must conscientiously do. Duties are ours, results are in the hands of God. We are not charged to concern ourselves about possible results, further than as they are part of the present act. The providence of God cares for the future; our business is with the present. We are to see that our next step is in the straightforward path of truth-that our next act is prompted by an enlightened sense of right; and all fear, lest in doing right now, we may suffer evil hereafter, is to be banished from the mind. On no occasion is the conscience to be beguiled by the snare that one false step may be taken to retrace or avoid evil, or to procure future good. If we move steadily forward in the path of right, God has given us his promise that no evil shall befall us, however much it may seem to impend.

"On the lion vainly roaring, on his young thy foot shall tread,

And the dragon's den exploring, thou shalt bruise the serpent's head."

Such a course of action creates a noble, manly, Christian characterunfaltering in its resolution, brave in action, and strong of purpose-fearless, never daunted, and always moving onward in the path of duty. Confident of the support of the Supreme Lord of all, he is relieved from all fear of human opposition, and is discharged from every feeling of mortification at defeat, or exultation at success. Flattery cannot pervert, scorn or ridicule cannot move him, for the approbation which alone he seeks is that of the Great Being who has never failed those who seek His favor. It is true that occasionally the path may be beset with danger. Darkness may obscure the distance-even clouds may lower, and threaten to burst, if we pursue our way. But there is the test of principle; there is to be exhibited the force of that truth which should fill our souls-the truth to be deduced from every page of revealed religion. "The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, and his ears are open unto their cry." Let him who is beset with danger, stand firmly at his post, and the path will soon be clear. Let him who fears the bursting of the storm, advance in the direction whither duty calls; let him breast even the billows, and they will subside before him; for he has the sure word of promise from Him, of whose truth heaven and earth bear witness:

"Fear not, I am with thee; oh! be not dismayed,

I, I am thy God, and will still give thee aid;

I'll strengthen thee, help thee, and cause thee to stand,

Upheld by my righteous, omnipotent hand."